I had a glass of chocolate milk with lunch today. This was not the problem. I ate my lunch in the living room so that I could keep an eye on my 7-month-old DD while she played on the floor. Also not the problem. The problem came when I took a drink of the chocolate milk, and then set it back on the end table next to me on the couch.

Well, I set it halfway on the end table. Turns out the glass prefers to have its whole self on the table, or else it unends itself onto the couch in protest.

I now sit with a change of pants, a scrubbed-down couch, and two pillows in the washing machine downstairs. But no chocolate milk.

You know, I'm pretty sure my mother told me not to drink chocolate milk in the living room for exactly this reason. I don't think I'll tell her about this.

Graduation banquet with a pay-as-you-go bar. I was attending for our office, as the boss had more events to attend than he had time some weeks.

I got a nice, brightly colored sloe gin fizz and put it down next to my seat at the LONG table (lots of smaller tables put together with tablecloth hiding where the tables changed height). Then I turned to talk to another coworker who was also attending (office staff went to the dinner in support of organization members who'd taken the four to six weeks to do the school). A base NCO Academy, for those with time in the military.

I put it down on a "joint" - with most of the base of the tall skinny glass on a place where the glass was supported only by the fabric of the tablecloth & air, on the wrong side of a seam between tables (lower by 1/4" or more - 1mm to the rest of the world). It made a spectacular dark pink stain on the white tableclothes. I hadn't gotten but a single sip.....

But everyone there was sure that I'd already gotten tipsy.....

I learned to either HOLD the glass while circulating or check to see if my seat was in the middle of the table or where two of them were butted next to each other.....

It wasn't the first time I spilled or the last time I spilled....at least none of it got on my outfit!

Don't get borred at Ikea, look at vases and wonder if you can fit your index finger inside. Yes, you can, but it will get stuck and you'll have to picture yourself going to the check-out, buying the 50C vase and breaking it carefuly. Which would have been a dumb option anyway.Thankfully I got it unstuck without having to meekly go to a store employe for some help.And I was 23 y/old, I should have known better.

Don't get borred at Ikea, look at vases and wonder if you can fit your index finger inside. Yes, you can, but it will get stuck and you'll have to picture yourself going to the check-out, buying the 50C vase and breaking it carefuly. Which would have been a dumb option anyway.Thankfully I got it unstuck without having to meekly go to a store employe for some help.And I was 23 y/old, I should have known better.

If I hold my hand in the air to get the fluids to drain out of the finger, the bud vase comes off quite easily. It's best to go into an unpopulated area to do that, however. Please do not ask how I know this. (Works with rings, too, if I have too much salty food after putting the ring on. I've never had to use soap.)

Don't assume that the one slim book you have on the care / feeding / breeding of rats is correct in every particular. If you do, and you have permission from your landlady to have one litter of baby rats, you'll be very careful to separate the male when your female rat is clearly pregnant. You'll be very happy when she produces fourteen beautiful little babies in assorted colours (six male, eight female), and you'll read the book carefully, and it'll say to separate the male babies from their mum and sisters when they're six weeks old.

You'll then discover that if they're being fed a good diet, baby rats can breed at five weeks old. You'll find this out when you hear strange squeaking noises in the middle of the night, and turn the light on to discover... um... activity going on. You'll separate them immediately, but it'll be too late. All nine female rats will be well and truly pregnant.

One will have five babies. The rest of them will have between twelve and eighteen each. You will end up with a grand total of over one hundred and thirty rats.

You'll separate the next lot at four weeks, preventing things from going exponential at you, but it'll be too late. You'll still have over one hundred rats after the local pet shops have bought as many as they want, and you'll refuse when your landlady orders you to donate them to the local schools and/or university for use as dissection subjects, and you'll be evicted.

(On the plus side, that wasn't a great place to live anyway, and my next landlord was a lovely guy and very understanding about me keeping Lots And Lots Of Rats in the garden shed. The last one died of happy, well-fed, CELIBATE old age five and a half years later.)

Don't assume that the one slim book you have on the care / feeding / breeding of rats is correct in every particular. If you do, and you have permission from your landlady to have one litter of baby rats, you'll be very careful to separate the male when your female rat is clearly pregnant. You'll be very happy when she produces fourteen beautiful little babies in assorted colours (six male, eight female), and you'll read the book carefully, and it'll say to separate the male babies from their mum and sisters when they're six weeks old.

You'll then discover that if they're being fed a good diet, baby rats can breed at five weeks old. You'll find this out when you hear strange squeaking noises in the middle of the night, and turn the light on to discover... um... activity going on. You'll separate them immediately, but it'll be too late. All nine female rats will be well and truly pregnant.

One will have five babies. The rest of them will have between twelve and eighteen each. You will end up with a grand total of over one hundred and thirty rats.

You'll separate the next lot at four weeks, preventing things from going exponential at you, but it'll be too late. You'll still have over one hundred rats after the local pet shops have bought as many as they want, and you'll refuse when your landlady orders you to donate them to the local schools and/or university for use as dissection subjects, and you'll be evicted.

(On the plus side, that wasn't a great place to live anyway, and my next landlord was a lovely guy and very understanding about me keeping Lots And Lots Of Rats in the garden shed. The last one died of happy, well-fed, CELIBATE old age five and a half years later.)

Kinda annoying, really. She blamed my cat for the HUGE holes her dog clawed into the screen door (he was bored and lonely), had a badly drained sunken courtyard that flooded my flat on a semi-regular basis, and was bad about maintenance in other areas (water leaks from the hot water system into my dirty laundry basket causing mold, for one thing). On the other hand, it was cheap!

Don't assume that the one slim book you have on the care / feeding / breeding of rats is correct in every particular. If you do, and you have permission from your landlady to have one litter of baby rats, you'll be very careful to separate the male when your female rat is clearly pregnant. You'll be very happy when she produces fourteen beautiful little babies in assorted colours (six male, eight female), and you'll read the book carefully, and it'll say to separate the male babies from their mum and sisters when they're six weeks old.

You'll then discover that if they're being fed a good diet, baby rats can breed at five weeks old. You'll find this out when you hear strange squeaking noises in the middle of the night, and turn the light on to discover... um... activity going on. You'll separate them immediately, but it'll be too late. All nine female rats will be well and truly pregnant.

One will have five babies. The rest of them will have between twelve and eighteen each. You will end up with a grand total of over one hundred and thirty rats.

You'll separate the next lot at four weeks, preventing things from going exponential at you, but it'll be too late. You'll still have over one hundred rats after the local pet shops have bought as many as they want, and you'll refuse when your landlady orders you to donate them to the local schools and/or university for use as dissection subjects, and you'll be evicted.

(On the plus side, that wasn't a great place to live anyway, and my next landlord was a lovely guy and very understanding about me keeping Lots And Lots Of Rats in the garden shed. The last one died of happy, well-fed, CELIBATE old age five and a half years later.)

I'm so paranoid about this, I get my rats from a rescue after they've been neutered. Even when there was nothing buy male rats in my house. As an elderly friend used to say to me, "You don't want anyone getting any fancy ideas!"

I'm so paranoid about this, I get my rats from a rescue after they've been neutered. Even when there was nothing buy male rats in my house. As an elderly friend used to say to me, "You don't want anyone getting any fancy ideas!"

Oh yeah. "Spay and neuter your pets" takes on a certain... shall we say urgency? ...when the pet in question can multiply the way rats can!

I couldn't afford to neuter my horde, so I dealt with it by having Boy Cages and Girl Cages, and never the twain would meet.

I couldn't afford to neuter my horde, so I dealt with it by having Boy Cages and Girl Cages, and never the twain would meet.

Explains why you see them all chewing on the bars and trying to open the door!

Logged

My cousin's memoir of love and loneliness while raising a child with multiple disabilities will be out on Amazon soon! Know the Night, by Maria Mutch, has been called "full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."

They tell you to never wrap a lead line around your hand when you're leading a horse. They tell you it can result in disastrous things if the horse decides to bolt. What they don't tell you is that if it happens on a much smaller scale, let's say with 2 large dogs, hilarious things can result, too.

I actually didn't mean to get the dog leashes (my mom's dogs, not mine) wrapped around my hand. They were jumping around so much, excited to see me, that I was more concerned about getting their leashes on and getting them out of our friend's house. I got both leashes in one hand, a tangled mess, and pushed open the door in a hurry. I was trying to say bye to the kids, my muscles braced against the taut leashes, but the dogs only had eyes for my mom.

They pulled, I dug my heals in a little, trying not to slip on the wet grass as I waved with my free hand. They relented momentarily, doubling back towards me in their excitement, trying to figure out who they were more excited to see. Not a second later they dug in and charged towards my mom.

I, instead, flew.

I swear it was just like the movies: the slow motion dog gallop, tongues flapping in the breeze, I partially vertical, arms outstretched, no connection to the ground but the intense urge to kiss it with my entire face.

I did manage to untangle the leashes from my mangled pinky as I limped towards the car, but by then my mom had already unclipped their leashes. I'm still not sure how she managed to do that between laughing and gasping for air to continue laughing. In her defense, I was laughing, too. Despite a nicely purple and broken pinky, I found the entire thing quite hilarious. In fact I still do. I will, however, make sure I have on leash in each hand. I think had it been just one dog, I would not have had such an intense urge to fly.

Don't go straight from a longer-than-average workout at the Y to an extensive restock-the-kitchen-after-vacation grocery shopping trip with both kids in tow. Because all the kiddie carts will be gone, so you'll have to put the baby in the cart and make the toddler walk, and then you'll have to do twice as much walking in the store to track down your toddler after she keeps going to the other end of the aisle to check out the chocolate frosted sugar bomb section of the breakfast cereals. And when you get home you'll be too exhausted to feel your feet, much less put the groceries away, and both girls will be screaming (inspired by each other).

I ended up leaving the bag of dog food in the car, putting away the fridge and freezer groceries, and leaving everything else on the floor in the bags until I either got a nap or DH came home.